House revamp - living room media centre

We've been in our house for 4 years now which is generally the time at which I feel the need to redecorate everywhere but our living room is a new addition that my husband built (single-handedly!) only 2 years ago.  It's a lovely, spacious room with a big set of bi-folding doors leading onto the decking & a woodburning stove - these were my two must-haves when we were planning it!

However, over Christmas I was looking around & thinking to myself that it was missing 'something'.  My initial though was that I just need to put more photos/artwork on the walls - which I do - but I realised that I wasn't entirely happy with the long wall where the tv sits.  It's a bit too empty.....

The photo makes it look a lot smaller than it is but as you can see, apart from the tv & tiny wee chest, there's nothing.  So I did what I always do in these situations - I turned to Pinterest!  I spent a happy couple of hours trawling through endless photos of living rooms & the one thing that I kept on pinning were images of media centres.  Admittedly, they were probably all nabbed from American homes but I just knew I could make it work in my room.  This is the sort of thing I'm talking about.

The more I look at them, the more I know this is what I need.  I hate that the tv is the main feature on the wall, this would take the focus off that & on to the piece of furniture itself.  Oh & the extra storage & bookshelves would be great!  I could finally hide the Wii & all the Skylanders gubbins that it currently entails (if you have young boys, you'll probably know what I'm talking about here!)

However, this year is going to already be quite a 'spendy' year as we have to completely render the exterior of the house, add new timber cladding to the gable, install a downstairs shower & do the driveway in order to finally get the extention signed off so spending oodles of cash on something made to measure was never going to happen.

I remembered seeing a similar set-up in Ikea last time I was there so I looked it up online.  They have this one, which is gorgeous, but unfortunately is just a tad too wide as we've yet to install the double doors in the room & the door would knock it when opened.  But the style & storage are great.

This is the Liatorp range & this combination comes in at £820.  However, because the room is decorated in warm, autumnal colours, I don't think white would be quite right anyway.  Ideally, I'd like something in a warmer taupe/grey shade.

Then I found this one, again from Ikea.

This Hemnes combination is significantly cheaper at only £420 but is very plain in comparison.  When I showed it to Hubble, he suggested adding a decorative plinth & cornicing round the bottom & top of the unit to give a similar effect to the Liatorp combi, which would work but then means the whole thing would have to be painted.

He jiggled some figures around & has worked out he could make one around £200/250 so it would then fit exactly but time is the issue here, gahhhh!!!  He could make it no problem, but he doesn't have time to do it at the moment *pouts like a stroppy child!*

So we've decided to take a trip through to Ikea on Saturday to take a look at them & take it from there.  The only certain thing is, is that I definitely want one asap - even Hubble agrees (for once!)  Pinterest is fabulous - and terrible at the same time as there's just too many bloody gorgeous rooms on there!  I've always disliked white decor as being too cold & uninviting & have therefore always used warm colours to decorate with.  Now, however, I'm hankering after white everywhere, look at these...

*Sighs* how lovely!!  It would stay for approximately 2.5 minutes with my mucky bunch though!

Anyway, sorry for the lengthy rambling.  Is anyone else planning a bit of redecoration this year?  You can find me on Pinterest here.